Starring Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan and David Torrence
Produced by Fox Film Corporation
Lem Tustine works on his family's wheat farm. They are getting by, but just barely. His father sends Lem into Chicago to sell the wheat harvest. His dad has calculated to the penny what the wheat needs to sell for in order to avoid financial ruin.
The bad news for Lem is an oversupply of wheat leads the price to start dropping right after he arrives. If he sells immediately, the price is less than what his dad commanded him to get. But if he waits much longer, the price may be even lower. He chooses to sell.
The good news for Lem is he meets a cute waitress at a diner in the city. Kate hates her job and romanticizes what a life in the country would be like. She and Lem connect immediately and when he stands up for Kate against a rude customer? It's love.
The two marry and return to the farm in Minnesota. Lem's mom and sister love the new arrival, but his father is not pleased. At all. He sees a son who allowed a woman to distract him from his job and a woman only interested in the family's money.
Kate and her new father-in-law have an argument and he slaps her. Lem can't bring himself to confront his father and a devastated Kate withdraws from her hubby. He takes to sleeping in the loft with the farmhands.
One of the farmhands begins flirting with Kate, giving her a potential way out. Will Kate leave Lem and her life on the farm? Will Lem stand up to his father? And can the family and farmhands pull together to harvest the crop before a devastating hailstorm arrives?
City Girl is the tale of a boy and a girl in love and a romance that is threatened by family and duty. It's a tale as old as time, a melodrama that people have seen play out on stage and screen ad nauseum.
The difference here of course is that this tale is told by F.W. Murnau.
Murnau never does anything traditionally. He's not one to set up a stationary camera and call "action." So his camera swoops across a trading floor board to show its scope. When Lem is alone and overwhelmed by the city, the camera pulls away, seemingly swallowing him in the bustle of urban life.
The film quickly moves through Lem and Kate falling in love and it works for the most part. I buy the romance and, while the wedding feels like a rash decision, it's a telling one, building the character of the newlyweds.
The arrival of the married couple at the farm provides the most beautifully cinematic moment of the film. Kate is overwhelmed by the fields of wheat and begins running and skipping through the landscape with Lem racing behind her. The camera moves with them and you truly get a sense the characters have arrived at their own Shangri-La.
As good as many aspects of the film are, City Girl does feel a bit rudderless in its middle act. Farmhands are introduced and characters just wander through the farmhouse, bumping into and away from one another. Characters are angry with one another, but nothing happens. It's not until the film's climax when the stakes are really raised.
The farmhands are interesting characters, but their motivations seem to change according to the whims of the script. Some of their decisions feel contrived, not earned. At one point, their are given a sort of ultimatum by Lem's father and their response makes no sense.
Despite the slow middle stanza, there is a lot to like here. In comparison to Murnau's earlier work, the plot and themes are slight, but that doesn't prevent the director from creating a memorable film.
**** out of *****
Photos from Brandon's Movie Memory
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